The art of writing with ink has gone through many changes over the centuries. Quill pens used the hollow roots of bird feathers to convey ink to paper. Then came pens with refillable rubber cartridges to convey the ink to a flexible metal tip with a slight hole and split in the middle to convey the ink to paper. Both quill pens and metal tip pens had a degree of springiness and flexibility that made pen writing a smooth experience.
In the late 1940's, ball point pens were invented and since then have come to dominate the ink pen market. They are compact, convenient and always ready to use. With just a push down on a spring biased finger actuating plunger at the top, the tip emerges with the ball point and you can begin writing. The ink is contained in a rigid cartridge and has a certain consistency that permits it to be fed to the tip at the required rate to convey it to the paper. Admittedly, with all the required forms to be filled out in today's society, sometimes forms with three or four carbons attached, that rigid cartridge can be pushed on by a force that could not be applied to a quill or standard metal tip pen.
However, there were many persons who appreciated good penmanship and those practitioners enjoyed the touch of a slightly springy tip that conveyed liquid ink to paper and permitted the hand to use a relaxed grip with a cushioned writing action. The dominance of the market by ball point pens has made the availability of cushioned writing action more difficult.
In 1968, Norbert A. Kirk received U.S. Pat. No. 3,419,336, incorporated herein by reference, which was an effort to provide a springy cushioned ball point pen. Between the spring biased finger actuating piece at the top and the rigid ink cartridge that was projected out of the pen housing, Kirk had an intervening coil spring that was tied to a peg on the actuating piece and to a peg on the ink cartridge. Lineal force on the ink tip was cushioned by that spring and you could use a relaxed grip with a cushioned writing action.
It is an object of this invention to provide a springy type support to the writing tip of ball point pens.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a springy type support to the writing tip of ball point pens by external means, i.e. outside the housing of the ink pen cartridge and the surrounding cylinder.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a springy type support that may be transferred from one ball point pen to another ball point pen, i.e. applied to one pen, removed therefrom and applied to another pen for use.